Railroads

[alexchunha]

Good posts, alexchunha. Good posts!

Thanks a bunch. I've been a lurker for too long!

 

[alexchunha]

According to the IGN interview with Jesse Smith, we won't be needing to road and rail every tile anymore, which is a good step forward IMHO. However, without maintenance costs of some sort, players could potentially still road and rail every tile if they wanted. In fact, there would still be an incentive to do so, because roading and railing every tile eliminate the existence of transportation chokepoints and the risk of a disconnection in case of enemy pillaging. And of course, that would eliminate the strategic value of well-placed troops.

But baby steps are better than no steps at all.

 

[eddie_verdde]

Whats not to understand??? (...) Even with those elements in, though, it is a very basic, simple system that I would say even a 6 y.o could understand.

I've been a fan of Aussie_lurker's ideas for some time because he seems to be aware of the main "problems" of CIV and he always provides elegant solutions to make the game more realistic and balanced.

However, sometimes he has such complex ideas and give so many details (eg: percentages, bonus values, dozens of parameters, etc.) that one might wonder: "does he even know if that would work in CIV4the game? How well does he know CIV4 to suggest such specific bonus values, percentages, etc.? How does he know that wouldn't unbalance the game?"

I believe that Aussie_lurker gives specific values, percentages, etc only as an example, not as "the game should be like this, with these percentage bonuses and this parameters".

Besides, I think the problem is that people don't like to see extensive, largely-detailed posts...at some point one might get confused and tired of reading it. I guess most people prefer to read things in topics.


Personally I think he should be sent as the emissary of the CIV fan community to the CIV4 team and I'll keep reading his posts attentively.

 

[civzombie]

"However, without maintenance costs of some sort, players could potentially still road and rail every tile if they wanted."

A quick and dirty solution based on the new interview information.

Multiply the number of cities in your civ by the number of "coal resources you have access to and by some multiple (say 6). The resulting number is the maximum amount of free railed squares you can have in your territory before you have to start paying matienence.

So if you have 10 cities and one coal resource, you get 10*1*6 = 60 free railed squares within your borders. Exceed 60 and pay maintence. Otherwise, get more coal to double the amount you can have (2 coals would bring it to 120). Tweek the numbers as fit for gameplay.

The only civs with railroads everywhere would be the coal rich civs or the civs that were willing to pay through the nose for the troop movement benefits.

 

[Zhargon]

I've just started looking at this thread and I don't understand why things should be so complicated. Unlimited RR travel is rather loopy, but so is the idea that any unit can join it at any point and then take advantage of speed.
Surely the railway should only be the infrastructure, rather than the transport mechanism itself. For example, I would suggest that if laying track was more expensive and required specialist units to lay it (as I do in my 'home' mod) it would tend to prevent the scatter theory of rails. ((To use the Russian example, isn't the Trans-Siberian still single track in places?)) Having laid the track, what is then required is units (trains?) which can be of varying capacity and range as time progresses, but which can only run on those railway tracks. To me, this would remove most of the obvious Railway problems - rail/ road "all-at-once-irrespective-of-terrain" building would still be a problem (the CTP2 discriminatory build method was better IMHO), and and as for canals....

 

[alexchunha]

I've just started looking at this thread and I don't understand why things should be so complicated.

If you read carefully, you should find that the gist of our ideas are simple, and resemble the old system of unlimited rail movement except with the added constraint of capacity.

Surely the railway should only be the infrastructure, rather than the transport mechanism itself.

Well, in civilization, the transport mechanism is just abstracted and represented by the presence of railroads. I find that a good things, because it avoids micromanagement.

For example, I would suggest that if laying track was more expensive and required specialist units to lay it (as I do in my 'home' mod) it would tend to prevent the scatter theory of rails.

That's worth considering.

Having laid the track, what is then required is units (trains?) which can be of varying capacity and range as time progresses, but which can only run on those railway tracks.

Now here I completely disagree. The need to build individual transport units would become nightmarishly tedious and cumbersome. Think about having to load and unload dozens of units turn after turn in a long war. It would be like having to ferry a massive army across an ocean using transports. Basically, it wouldn't be fun. The nice thing about abstracting the actual transport process is that, as I said above, it avoids such micromanagement.

To me, this would remove most of the obvious Railway problems

Perhaps, but it would be an extremely annoying and boring feature that would turn a lot of people off.

the CTP2 discriminatory build method was better IMHO

I'm not familiar with that, perhaps you could enlighten me.

and as for canals....

Yes?

 

[10Seven]

It seems vital that there be some capacity model - it seems to me the current Firaxis 'fix' reducing the resource benefits of rail won't do anything to address the problem.

I also like the suggestion as to cost of rail/coal resources.

 

[apatheist]

It's weird to me that creating a tile in one location increases the capacity of the network as a whole. Why should laying down track in California increase the capacity of the railroads in New York? It's counter-intuitive.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

To me its a neccessary abstraction-a point where gameplay trumps realism. If each cities capacity were created individually, it would become an accounting nightmare, whereas a nation-wide capacity gives you a single number which you can easily see drop as you use railways.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[th0mas]

And even if we're going to be stuck with railing every tile, they should at least try to make it look better!

Sadly I actually liked the look of the ugly railway sprawl in Civ1.
..It was too uniform in civ 2 and too 'floral' in Civ 3, however in my mind it gives a good graphical representation of Urabanisation and make the map more 'alive'.

In terms of implementing a new Rail model for Civ4, I stand firmly on the side of simplicity. The idea of using transport units does not only create micromanagment but also does not fit within the Strategic scope of Civ, being more an RTS tactical thing IMO.

Maintenance also creates problems, how do you approach non-payment? Does the track stop working? would it require workers to re-fix the line, like with pollusion in the previous Civ titles?

What happens when you culturally take over another's territory (as seen with the new leaders)? Will you be forced to pay extra maintenance for the new tracks? Could you become bankcrupt because of this with no way to prevent it from happening?

Basically I would keep the existing model, (with or without the trade bonus). Instantaneous travel may not be the most elegant approach, but as an abstraction I think it does a pretty good job of representing modern transport networks viewed from the birdseye 30,000 feet, Geological timescales that Civ respresents.

 

[apatheist]

To me its a neccessary abstraction-a point where gameplay trumps realism. If each cities capacity were created individually, it would become an accounting nightmare, whereas a nation-wide capacity gives you a single number which you can easily see drop as you use railways.

It's less about realism per se, and more about what's intuitive. An improvement to a distant tile shouldn't affect anything about the local tile. It doesn't follow the principle of least surprise.

Let's say you have an archipelago empire over 5 main islands. Then you would have 5 railroad networks. Does adding railroad anywhere in my empire increase its capacity everywhere? Or does it only add capacity to its local network? What if you have a single rail network that gets broken in two? Or two rail networks connected by road?

What about railroads outside my borders that I build? Let's say I have two cities with unowned space in between them that are connected by railroads. Do the unowned spaces count towards my capacity?

What about allies who use your rail network? Do they use up your capacity or their own? Does the answer change if their networks are connected to yours vs. being separate? Do you lose capacity if you lose territory? What if civ4 allows enemy units to use your railroads?

Let's say I'm China in between Japan and India. I'm fighting a war with both. I'm moving troops east towards Japan on my railroads. India bombards and destroys my railroads in the west. As a result, I can move fewer troops in the east.

As will come as zero surprise, especially since I have my own candidate for modifying railroads, I'm not a fan of capacity. So far, I've seen the following mechanisms for it:

1) Capacity depends on the number of railroad squares a player has in a single network.
2) Each tile has a fixed capacity; no more than X units can pass through it on a turn
3) You have a fixed number of movement points per turn
4) You pay to move
5) Train units

My objections to the first are listed above. #3, #4, and #5 have obvious problems that have been previously discussed. #2 seems the simplest and least likely to have weird effects, but even it has flaws. Besides my own pet proposal, the status quo seems like the least of the evils.

 

[Jaybe]

I still (almost) INSIST on not being able to combine railroad and "normal" movement in the same turn; or make rail movement END that unit's movement for the turn.

It simplifies the "strategic" issue immensely.

EDIT: I am not saying that I mind the rail capacity concept; and paying for transporting units by rail simulates both capacity diverted from the economy and paying the rail companies (depending on your civics options -- the government may OWN the rail companies)! /EDIT

 

[nullspace]

I still (almost) INSIST on not being able to combine railroad and "normal" movement in the same turn; or make rail movement END that unit's movement for the turn.

It simplifies the "strategic" issue immensely.

I think that's the simplest, most elegant solution. That would basically make railroads work the same way airports work in Civ3. A unit can teleport from one city to another if the two cities are connected by rails, and that ends the unit's turn. There could also be some limit on the number of units a city can send and receive each turn. I think that's an easily understood rule that addresses the main complaints about railroads without adding much micromanagement.

 

[apatheist]

I could live with that. I infer that you could only move from city to city on railroads in this scheme; is that correct? The way railroads are constructed and displayed might need to be tweaked so it doesn't imply that you can move anywhere you want at any time. Limiting the incoming and outgoing traffic would be unnecessary, I think.

 

[Jaybe]

apathetic athiest(?), what I was referring to was relative to civ3 rails, not anything else in this thread. If rail building was expensive and there was a worker-unit stacking limit it would be very restrictive in itself. Restricting rails to city-to-city would not be required as far as I am concerned.

(... but you were probably replying to nullspace.)

 

[Zhargon]

If you read carefully, you should find that the gist of our ideas are simple, and resemble the old system of unlimited rail movement except with the added constraint of capacity.

But in my view it is the unlimited rail movement that is the problem. The railways did change warfare & society, but the speed & capacity of Puffing Billy in 1813(?), hardly compared with those at the Rainhill Trials a few years later, and so on through the 19th Century. Civ doesn't reflect that since it allows the capability of the Bullet Train as soon as Railbuilding is possible - hence why I'd prefer a 'train' type which could improve with advances.

Well, in civilization, the transport mechanism is just abstracted and represented by the presence of railroads. I find that a good things, because it avoids micromanagement.

Should the system be extended to the sea, so that workers could build sea-lanes, and do away with sea transports to avoid that micromanagement? What about air routes?
It really depends what one would like to do - hopefully the developers will include sufficient flexibility for all to be satisfied.

Now here I completely disagree. The need to build individual transport units would become nightmarishly tedious and cumbersome. Think about having to load and unload dozens of units turn after turn in a long war. It would be like having to ferry a massive army across an ocean using transports. Basically, it wouldn't be fun. The nice thing about abstracting the actual transport process is that, as I said above, it avoids such micromanagement.

So presumably you don't use paratroops either? Could it be that you prefer the massive single continent game? I prefer multiple islands, the challenge of the seaborne invasion to developing continent(s), getting the planning, logistics and timing right, - loading onto a number of rafts/boats only requires a drag after all. Then keeping off hostile warships from your convoy, whilst protecting one's own coastline etc etc - but each to his own.

--

CTP2 discriminatory build method.

The CTP2 system allowed the capability of the building of roads or whatever to be controlled by Advance ie the first significant advance could be set to allow building on flat land, another advance for hills, another for marsh, another for coastal water etc etc. The movement points required on roads on different terrains was also configurable - (trains tend to go slower in mountainous terrains because of the possibility of rockfall for example). It meant that buildable routes had to be planned early on, since building on the 'wrong' sort of terrain was impossible until the requisite advance had been achieved, rather than just a function of the number of workers available.
((Taken with the combat system CTP2 was very good, but the fact that it crashed so often meant that I finally gave up with it for Civ3.))

 

[apatheist]

But in my view it is the unlimited rail movement that is the problem. The railways did change warfare & society, but the speed & capacity of Puffing Billy in 1813(?), hardly compared with those at the Rainhill Trials a few years later, and so on through the 19th Century. Civ doesn't reflect that since it allows the capability of the Bullet Train as soon as Railbuilding is possible - hence why I'd prefer a 'train' type which could improve with advances.

Civilization always glosses over incremental improvements. There's only one kind knight. There's only one kind of factory. If Civilization reflected that these technologies are not discovered and refined in one big gulp, then it would have to be a completely different game.

 

[alexchunha]

Should the system be extended to the sea, so that workers could build sea-lanes, and do away with sea transports to avoid that micromanagement?

That's just absurd.

So presumably you don't use paratroops either? Could it be that you prefer the massive single continent game? I prefer multiple islands, the challenge of the seaborne invasion to developing continent(s), getting the planning, logistics and timing right, - loading onto a number of rafts/boats only requires a drag after all. Then keeping off hostile warships from your convoy, whilst protecting one's own coastline etc etc - but each to his own.

I too enjoy seaborn invasions. Admittedly, I find the micromanagement in this case to not only be tolerable, but entertaining. But that doesn't mean I'm a fan of extending the micromanagement to land travel. After all, rail travel also applies to non-military units (workers, for example). Maybe having to transport your massive military by train units would be acceptable micromanagement, but I would hate having to do the same for workers. I like the flexibility of moving them wherever they are needed, but the train unit concept you are proposing would make this more tedious than it need be.

Just because micromanagement in one aspect of the game is acceptable doesn't mean that it's a good idea to extend it to another aspect of the game. Otherwise, you would keep adding micromanagement, and that is usually a bad idea. The micromanagement that is necessary for seaborn invasions is okay with me, but I would oppose adding that same level of micromanagement to land invasions.

And to answer the first question, I don't use paratroopers. They are usually of limited use to me.

 

[alexchunha]

I still (almost) INSIST on not being able to combine railroad and "normal" movement in the same turn; or make rail movement END that unit's movement for the turn.

It simplifies the "strategic" issue immensely.

I agree. At the very least, this ought to be considered.

I infer that you could only move from city to city on railroads in this scheme; is that correct? The way railroads are constructed and displayed might need to be tweaked so it doesn't imply that you can move anywhere you want at any time.

While that's not a bad idea, I would have a problem with only being able to move units via rail between cities. I believe that is (excessively) unrealistic.

 

[apatheist]

While that's not a bad idea, I would have a problem with only being able to move units via rail between cities. I believe that is (excessively) unrealistic.

Are you sure? I drive by railroad tracks every day. I have never seen a train stop and unload its contents at an arbitrary point along the way. I see automobiles do that all the time on the road. Trains don't stop at arbitrary locations. They need all kinds of equipment to load and unload because the stuff they carry is heavy and bulky. They can't just stop on the tracks because they only lay one pair of rails in most places; if the train stops, no trains can pass it in any direction. It's a bit of a simplification to only allow that in cities, but it's not changing the nature of it, just tweaking the degree of restriction.

The plan I outlined and linked above would allow you to get off the railroad at any point along the way, but you could only get on the railroad at a city.